I really dislike the segmented progress bar, and unlike VB6, VB.NET provides no built-in style that lets you just set it to a smooth look. On top of that, I found the need to display text on the progress bar, and... well... it kinda developed feature-creep so that now it also supports gradients and incline effects, changeable border styles, etc.

This should be a decent introduction to setting up design-time properties (default values & descriptions) in a .NET usercontrol. Attached is the control along with a demo project. You'll need to build the control first before you can open the demo.

I built this in VS.NET 2002 to make it more accessible to everyone, but it converts very easily to 2003. Enjoy, and feel free to PM me if you find any errors.